Kazakhstan Thanks "Borat" for the Tourist Boom

The comedy was banned in the country on its release in 2006

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Kazakhstan is grateful for the tourist boom that "Borat" brought with the full-scale mockery it made of the country.

Kazakhstan wasn't exactly pleased when "Borat" came out six years ago — but now, with an influx of tourists the central Asian nation with which credits the comedy, it's changed its tune.

"I am grateful to Borat, the main character of the movie, for tourists’ keen interest in Kazakhstan," the country's Foreign Minister Erzhan Kazykhanov said Monday before the lower house of parliament, Kazakh news site Tengri News reported.

Kazykhanov said tourist visas to the country are up tenfold in the six years since the release of the hit comedy, much of whose humor comes from its vision of Kazakhstan as a prostitute-laden backwater.